


Less Concerned About Fitting Into The World

by Dikhotomia



Series: 1000 Prompts Attempt 2: The (Slightly) Unorganized Mess [3]
Category: Control (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, I wanted to play a little with Jesse's past so...I did, Pre-Game (and a little during), gently adds another character study to the pile
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-07
Updated: 2020-01-07
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:13:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22152334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dikhotomia/pseuds/Dikhotomia
Summary: The World is a needle point window in a room in an institution she didn't want to be in. It's a motivational poster that lays in pieces on the floor since the day she decided to rip it in half and stare mulishly at the orderly that came in to bring her dinner that night. It's a cracked mirror and a bandaged fist, knuckles throbbing in a reminder that she's still awake, still alive.Still human.ORJesse adapts to things ever changing.
Series: 1000 Prompts Attempt 2: The (Slightly) Unorganized Mess [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1594495
Comments: 4
Kudos: 39





	Less Concerned About Fitting Into The World

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, I uh. Yea. Control ate my life just as much as FE3H did so here I am.
> 
> this is the third prompt in my 1000 prompts attempt 2 adventure. (World)

The World is a needle point window in a room in an institution she didn't want to be in. It's a motivational poster that lays in pieces on the floor since the day she decided to rip it in half and stare mulishly at the orderly that came in to bring her dinner that night. It's a cracked mirror and a bandaged fist, knuckles throbbing in a reminder that she's still awake, still alive.

Still human.

It's Polaris whispering to her while she lays awake at night from the nightmares, covered in a cold sweat and gasping for air. It's her wishing Polaris was more than a voice in her head and a phantom 'touch' on her shoulders and face. It's her being shuffled into therapy session after therapy session with a woman who twists her up and tries to convince her her truths are lies and her lies are truths. It's her wanting desperately to get out of the prison with the poster and the mirror and the nightmares.

Out. Out. _Out._

It's her deciding to lie her way into making them believe she's better, the words tasting sour and acidic on her tongue as she speaks them, as she winds a web with a monotonous voice and a blank look. _I'm better_ , she thinks, smiling back at her therapist despite the fact that she feels like she's dying inside, _no more stories. It was all just a dream, all just a way to escape._

_And I fooled you didn't I? You have no idea that I just told you what you wanted to hear, you'll go home and sleep well thinking you helped another person today, won't you?_

She shakes the woman's hand, smiles more and thanks her for the help, thanks a dozen other people whose names and faces she doesn't bother trying to remember because she doesn't care after she collects what little belongings she has. She leaves and steps out into a world that's changed from the day she went in.

_It continued to move without me, like time does, ticking by day by day. Things changed while I stagnated in that hell. I guess it's time we catch up, huh?_

Polaris agrees.

The world opens up to her bit by bit, by town and city. It becomes long days on the road and long nights spent in shitty motels with cheap food and cheaper beer. It becomes a sense of paranoia that sits ugly and itching on her shoulders and the base of her spine, crawling up the back of her neck and making her look over her shoulder constantly. 

It's Polaris soothing frayed nerves as she sits against a building with a split lip and a bloody nose, the wallet a would be mugger wanted to steal still firmly in her now bloodied hands, glaring at passerby's with a mistrust sprouted from her days in the institution. It's a slow process, letting people back in, learning to watch and listen to facial expressions and vocal tones. She comes to trust Polaris' judgement like her own.

She still hates small talk, always sticking to the point, always starting a conversation for a reason instead of just for the hell of it. She finds jobs, makes friends with the maintenance people and the less fortunate, the janitor's, the homeless. She likes them better, they don't lie or try and manipulate her to gain something. They're open and friendly and she fits in with them with an ease she hasn't felt for years. It's where she settles, in and out of small businesses or shelters, cleaning floors and listening to stories.

But she never stays, slipping off the second the paranoia feels like eyes on her back and she begins to wonder if she's being followed or if someone is just going in the same direction as she is. She doesn't say goodbye, doesn't ever introduce herself beyond to the people she has to. She tells herself it's for their protection, and she's not sure why she thinks like that, but it's comforting in a way she decides not to question.

And she makes her way across the United States a few states at a time, driving or flying, becoming some kind of ghost that slides in and out of people's lives without any real consequence (or so she wants to believe).

The paranoia crawls in her wake like some sort of demon, alive and thriving on spindly legs, a void grinning black that try as she might she can't ever pinpoint the source of. Polaris tells her to keep moving, to keep going, pulling her forward with whispered words and new destinations.

She reaches New York City sometime in October (dates and days run together when you stop paying attention) near Halloween, she thinks, catching sight of some of the small touches people in the city allow themselves. There's a sign for a costume party hanging on a few power line poles she passes and children excitedly babble about going trick or treating.

It's a small shade of home, digging up memories of running around Ordinary with Dylan and their parents, seeing familiar faces and finding out what sort of things they'd done that year. She's not sure if she misses it, and she tucks the thought back away in the corner of her mind where all her childhood sits in shards.

_Doesn't matter now, there's nothing to go back to anyway. Just an empty town devoid of people. I try not wonder what happened to them, because I'm not sure I ever wanna know._

She wanders down October grayed concrete streets, hands in her pockets and breath fogging out in front of her, rain drizzling down and chilling across what skin is exposed by her choice of outfit. It's not quite warm enough, but she's not cold enough to go find a place to hole up either, content to keep walking along with the flow of the evening crowd. Nobody really looks at her, and the paranoia edges it's claws out of her spine, but the tension there is permanent.

It aches in her shoulders and in her neck, but it feels less crushing.

_I'm not sure if this a good thing or not._

She never decides.

She finds the FBC building a day later, standing at the foot of the steps and staring up at it with a pull in her chest and Polaris telling her; _this is it, this is where you need to be._ She goes in, step by step, pushing open the doors and stepping into a wash of silence.

Everything tilts on it's head after that.

The world becomes something else, alien, different. It becomes fighting for her life and exploring halls that shift and change and leave her disorientated, it becomes gaining power and using it to save the lives of the people she finds stranded in shelters and corners. It becomes adapting to something ever shifting, to tactics on the fly and digging into the going ons she's years and years too late for.

It narrows into an excitable researcher she meets in the first few hours, into a janitor who she's not entirely sure about but she decides she likes him anyway. Into a security guard who, like her, likes the maintenance people. It becomes her becoming something she didn't think she was capable of being.

Director, Leader, Savior in some backwards way.

She likes it better this way, this odd place and it's dangerous jobs.

Even if she could do without some of the mess she has to clean up.

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/modulatechaos) It's a little wild and I spend most of my time yelling about FE3H but. yea.


End file.
